descending on a fixie

[Shredder]

I am thinking about converting an old bike into a fixie, but am concerned that I won't ride it enough to make it worthwhile. I live in the mountains outside Denver, which I suspect will limit the rides. There is only one flat section of road anywhere near my home and it is only six miles long. Even in the foothills, the terrain is rolling at its flattest.

I am not worried about climbing w/ the fixie. One reason I am interested in riding one is the training benefit of not being able to coast and being required to really gut it out up a hill.

What scares me, however, is the prospect of screaming down a hill on a bike that won't allow coasting and is tricky to slow down. I am not a real gutsy descender and don't have the nerve to just let it fly.

Anyway, I know a lot of you ride fixies. I would love your take on my concern about descending on a fixie. Thanks.

[Russell]

might consider 2 brakes instead of just one.

[Fixed]

put some brakes on and it'll slow down almost like a road bike .bro
cheers

[swoop]

work on your cadence and spin it out, put a brake on front, or unclip and lift your legs and lets those pedals spin like mad.

[goonster]

You should definitely do this conversion, and you should definitely put two brakes on it.

Just make sure you put those hands on the brakes before you start the descent, because you may find that at 180 rpm you won't want to move them from wherever they are. ;)

[coylifut]

one brake will do, but there's no problem with two. put a cyclo cross lever on it, that way you can put your hands on the tops in order to sit more upright and spin while feathering the brake if the speed gets out of hand. It'll take a lot of pressure off your crotch on long descents.

[Too Tall]

One brake fer sher...two is not a bad idea. If you've got the ability to fit a deep section alum. front wheel that is a good call in the mtn.s where heavy fr. braking might be important. "Deep" as in anything 28mm +. These rims dissipate heat real nice.

[Samster]

i'm sure someone out there will disagree, but i find that unless i'm on something more than a 8% downgrade for a long stretch, i have no problems controlling speed with leg rotation and some reverse pressure.

that said, i don't think you ever want to go too fast on a fixed gear on the road. sounds obvious, but the road is _not_ the track and your response times are slower on a track set up than on a road set up. turning your cranks at anything more than about 110 rpms is just asking for trouble-- of course all imo.

[J.Greene]

I am thinking about converting an old bike into a fixie, but am concerned that I won't ride it enough to make it worthwhile. I live in the mountains outside Denver, which I suspect will limit the rides. There is only one flat section of road anywhere near my home and it is only six miles long. Even in the foothills, the terrain is rolling at its flattest.

I am not worried about climbing w/ the fixie. One reason I am interested in riding one is the training benefit of not being able to coast and being required to really gut it out up a hill.

What scares me, however, is the prospect of screaming down a hill on a bike that won't allow coasting and is tricky to slow down. I am not a real gutsy descender and don't have the nerve to just let it fly.

Anyway, I know a lot of you ride fixies. I would love your take on my concern about descending on a fixie. Thanks.

Two brakes. with two brakes and back pressure i suspect could out stop a geared bike on a steep hill. I live in central fl so I don't have you problems.

JG

[fiamme red]

i'm sure someone out there will disagree, but i find that unless i'm on something more than a 8% downgrade for a long stretch, i have no problems controlling speed with leg rotation and some reverse pressure.

that said, i don't think you ever want to go too fast on a fixed gear on the road. sounds obvious, but the road is _not_ the track and your response times are slower on a track set up than on a road set up. turning your cranks at anything more than about 110 rpms is just asking for trouble-- of course all imo.Get a front brake and you won't need to worry about exceeding 110 rpm.

[Ti Designs]

Nobody said anything about the one thing you really need - a super smooth pedal stroke. The problem most people have at high cadence is bouncing in the saddle. That bounce is caused by the pedal coming up the back part of the pedal stroke faster than your muscles are relaxing and letting it. The combination of the force on the pedals and the rapid rise of the pedal lifts your body weight off the saddle. Teaching your muscles to fire in the right order faster is the only way to smooth out the pedal stroke, and it pays off in efficiant pedalling in bigger gears at lower RPMs too.

Beyond a good, fast pedal stroke there's not much to it. Front brake is a good idea, the rear brake is the fixed gear. As weight transfer is to the front wheel, there's little to gain by adding a second brake, and it screws up the feedback you get from the pedals. As for position, the suggestion for a cyclocross brake lever so you can use a more upright position sounds about right to me. I always set up fixed gears a bit shorter than road bikes for just that reason.

The only warning is not to get in over your head, and don't unclip your feet - once you lose the lower contact point the bike gets much harder to handle. Don't start on some super long downhill, make the test cases short hills. You'll find you have a warning speed where your brain can't wrap itself around what's going on down there. At that speed you can't backpressure the pedals, you wouldn't know which way to resist. Use the brake to keep yourself below that speed and with time you'll find it goes up.

I've done a few long, hilly rides on my fixed gear including the 200K Boston Brevet (back when the route was designed for maximum downhill speed on a tandem). If you find yourself with a group of riders on geared bikes, make sure they know that you have a much lower top speed, and let them know which side you want them passing you on. Nothing worse than flailing down some hill just on the edge of control and having riders zip past you on both sides...

[Shredder]

THanks everyone. Great feedback. I am convinced that I should do the conversion.

[Ray]

Nobody said anything about the one thing you really need - a super smooth pedal stroke. ....

As weight transfer is to the front wheel, there's little to gain by adding a second brake, and it screws up the feedback you get from the pedals.....

The only warning is not to get in over your head, and don't unclip your feet - once you lose the lower contact point the bike gets much harder to handle. Don't start on some super long downhill, make the test cases short hills. You'll find you have a warning speed where your brain can't wrap itself around what's going on down there. At that speed you can't backpressure the pedals, you wouldn't know which way to resist. Use the brake to keep yourself below that speed and with time you'll find it goes up.

Lots of really good advice here. I agree that the back brake doesn't add a thing unless you're planning to take your feet out of the pedals which, as noted, you really shouldn't do.

As for not getting in over your head, I'd change that just a little and say don't get in TOO FAR over your head. If you don't get in a little deeper than you're comfortable with, you won't develop that super smooth, super fast pedal stroke. Looooong descents are probably best avoided early on unless you plan to just survive them using your brake. But short to medium descents of increasing steepness (ie, not as steep this week as next, steeper the week after, etc.) is a really good way to learn that stroke. I found that my top cadence went from about 125 to about 170 within a period of a month or so when I first started riding fixed. The best place to 'practice' is on short downhills. Things do get pretty scarey beyond a certain point, but when you can see the bottom, it's easier to force yourself to maintain it and get faster. Just make sure you don't make the mistake of relaxing in the run-out at the bottom - you'll instinctively want to but that's a good place to get a hell of a kick from the back pedal as it reminds you NOT to coast. After a couple of months of this, I got to where I could hold 160-170 for a couple of minutes at a time.

One other note. A lot of us have a "bounce zone" somewhere around 120-130 rpm. You can spin in a pretty relaxed manner up to that point and above that point you have to get really aggressive and less relaxed, but there's always a bit of a transition between the relaxed spin and the aggressive spin that feels quite awkward. Don't automatically slow down when you get there - you really have to break through this zone and things, believe it or not, get a lot smoother on the higher side. This was one of the key lessons I learned when I was first riding fixed - your legs CAN go faster, but you have to make them do it and really get on top of the stroke at that point - you can't just try to keep up, you have to drive it. That little transition zone is kind of like a sonic boom - once you pass through it, things get sort of quiet again. But, again, when you're experimenting with going through this point, make sure things will level out again relatively quickly so you don't get in too deep and be ready to use the brake if you really need to.

Have fun,

-Ray

[Samster]

Get a front brake and you won't need to worry about exceeding 110 rpm.maybe for you--everyone's different... but i find that at high revs, my mind is focusing on pedalling at the expense of my surroundings... and it takes concentration to pedal at 130+ imo.

once again, just my opinion -- better to keep speed at bay when fixing on road... particularly when you're just getting started...

[Climb01742]

i hear prayer helps.

[72gmc]

if you'll pardon the borryin' of your thread, shredder, there's an article in the bike portland blog that talks about brakes for a different reason (http://bikeportland.org/2006/07/28/judge-finds-fault-with-fixies/). i had been thinking of hand brakes for hills as you have, but it seems it's more than just a matter of personal comfort in some localities...

[Shredder]

72gmc, innarestin article...............thanks

[Ti Designs]

Wow, that article shows just how little both sides understand. The cop and the judge don't understand fixed gears - that's to be expected. The messenger doesn't understand physics - about the same. If it was a safety issue and not one of the definition of a brake, there would be some kind of maximum stopping distance from a given speed...

[Fixed]

cops must not have much to do there the only time in 16 years i have been stoped was 4 a.m. with no light . then he said boy ya know you need a light on one of dem things as he ate his doughnut .then sent me on my way .I don't stop at signs or lights cops never stop bros in the hood for that stuff .
cheers

[bironi]

I am uncertain about mountain descents on a fixie. I know that a few rondoneurs ride fixed on long mountainous terrain, but that aint me. I will concur that there is a small window of cadence that makes for a bit of butt bounce when beginning, but one may overcome this quickly. A couple of things that have helped me as a rookie are:

Don't look for the end of the descent, just concentrate on the spin, or better yet, don't concentrate, space out. It's a zen sorta thing, your body will respond if you just relax mentally.

I move forward to the nose of the saddle and get confortable just prior to the steep descent. You need to be ready to spin more over the bb like a tri-athlete.

Make sure your bike is adjusted properly to allow for a more forward position when required. I do however subscribe to someone's signature line, "To break is to admit defeat". I like to be on the hoods, ready to break if absolutely necessary. Make sure to have some elbow bend for shock absorbsion.

Please let us know how the longer mountain descents are handled when you are an experienced fixie rider. :beer:

Thanks